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Posted February 23, 2017

Alumna Jenny Sabin Wins YAP 2017

Jenny Sabin Studio

PennDesign alumna Jenny Sabin (MArch‘05), who also taught at the School before joining the faculty at Cornell, is the winner of the 2017 Young Architects Program. The Young Architects Program (YAP) is an annual competition hosted by The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 to foster innovative architecture, and one of the most coveted honors in the world for emerging practitioners.

Sabin describes her proposal, Lumen, on her website:

“By night, Lumen is knitted light, bathing visitors in a responsive glow of photo-luminescence; by day, Lumen offers succor from the summer heat, immersing participants in delicious ground clouds of cooling mist. Lumen is a socially and environmentally responsive structure that adapts to the densities of bodies, heat, and sunlight. A lightweight knitted fabric of responsive tubular structures and a canopy of cellular components employs recycled textiles, photo-luminescent and solar active yarns that absorb, collect, and deliver light. This environment offers spaces of respite, exchange, and engagement as a misting system responds to visitors’ proximity, activating fabric stalactites that produce a refreshing micro-climate. Families of robotically woven recycled spool chairs reveal informal messages and conversations through hydro-chromic materials. It is an open responsive system featuring digitally knitted and robotically woven lightweight, high-performing, formfitting, and adaptive materials. Lumen is a feminine form that offers luminous interiorities, informal networks, social fabrics, and fibrous assemblages that are pliable, transformative, and playful.”

“It’s a really big deal and definitely something that I have aspired to for a long time,” Sabin told Metropolis magazine. “I’m just absolutely thrilled and honored to be amidst such an incredible group of finalists—and to now have the opportunity to realize the project.”